San Diego employment outlook slips

San Diego companies will hire at the same pace in 2014's first quarter that they did in this year's first quarter, but there's a slight uptick in those with layoff plans.

Manpower's San Diego employment outlook, released this month, surveys the same 120 companies each quarter to ask about hiring plans. In the first three months of 2014, 15 percent of those companies said they expect to add to their staffs, matching last year's rate. However, 11 percent said they plan to lay off workers, slightly above 2013's 9 percent that planned to cut staff. Another 3 percent said they were unsure, while the rest said they'd maintain staffing levels.

Phil Blair, CEO of San Diego's Manpower, a staffing agency, said he believes the numbers will turn out better than the survey indicates. He said the survey was likely taken a month before Congress passed a budget to roll back sequestration cuts, which probably caused employers to answer more tepidly.

"It was much more conservative than I expected, and that’s why I think employers, when they look back at this, are going to be pleasantly surprised that the economy continued to grow at a good healthy rate, with no extreme ups or downs," Blair said.

The survey computes a net employment outlook, by subtracting the percentage of companies that plan layoffs from those who plan to hire. For San Diego, the index in the first quarter came out to 4 percent, down from 6 percent in the same time period last year.

Nationwide, 17 percent of the 18,000 companies surveyed report they plan to add staff, while 7 percent expect to lay off workers. Through a seasonal adjustment, such as January retail layoffs after the holiday season, the nation's net employment outlook comes out to 13 percent.